William McIntosh Davies was born on 31 May 1964 and is a Scottish former professional footballer and manager.
23 Facts About Billy Davies
2.
Billy Davies won the 2007 Play-offs with Derby County, finished as runners-up in 2005 with Preston North End, and reached the semi-finals in 2006,2010 and 2011.
3.
Billy Davies started his professional playing career at the Scottish club Rangers.
4.
Billy Davies then had spells with Swedish teams Jonkoping and Elfsborg.
5.
Billy Davies went on to play for St Mirren, Leicester City and Dunfermline Athletic before he finished his playing career with Motherwell in his native Scotland.
6.
Billy Davies went on to player-coach and then manage Motherwell, helping them first avoid relegation with few games remaining in his first season in charge.
7.
Billy Davies moved south to England and took on the role of assistant manager to former Scotland national coach Craig Brown at Preston North End.
8.
Billy Davies took Preston to the brink of the Premier League via the play-offs in May 2005 but lost in the final.
9.
Billy Davies was interviewed for the position at Charlton Athletic when it was announced that Alan Curbishley would be stepping down after 15 years as manager but Davies was unsuccessful and the job went to Iain Dowie instead.
10.
Billy Davies then accepted an offer to manage Preston's Championship rivals Derby County on 2 June 2006.
11.
Some critics believed that Billy Davies was a victim of his own success after overachieving in his first season at Pride Park, while others cited his apparent tactical inefficiencies at top flight level, poor big money signings and suggested Billy Davies had engineered his own departure, in the form of an outspoken rant against the board so as to avoid having a relegation on his CV.
12.
Billy Davies was later linked with the managerial positions of the Scotland national team after Alex McLeish stepped down to take charge of Birmingham City, Leicester City, as well as Dundee and Hibernian.
13.
Billy Davies was considered a candidate to become assistant manager to Everton boss David Moyes, a role which came vacant when Alan Irvine left to take charge of Billy Davies's old club Preston.
14.
On 31 December 2008, it was announced by Nottingham Forest that the club was in negotiations with Billy Davies to succeed the recently dismissed Colin Calderwood.
15.
Billy Davies was appointed as their manager on 1 January 2009, officially taking over on 5 January.
16.
On 7 February 2013, Billy Davies returned to Nottingham Forest as manager, signing a three-and-half-year deal, 20 months after being dismissed by the previous Forest board.
17.
On 18 October 2013, Billy Davies signed a four-year contract extension at the City Ground.
18.
Billy Davies' second spell proved to be a controversial and damaging one.
19.
Billy Davies dismissed long-serving club staff without explanation, shouted at a photographer taking photos for the club's matchday programme after a match at Millwall, banned journalists as part of a "near media blackout", and employed his cousin, Jim Price, a suspended solicitor, as his closest advisor.
20.
John Payne of The Metro said that Billy Davies owed the Forest fans an apology for his behaviour after failing to acknowledge them at the end of the defeat to Derby and "insulted fans' intelligence" by refusing to answer straight questions on the rare occasion he gave press interviews.
21.
Billy Davies is the elder brother of John Davies and the brother-in-law of John Spencer.
22.
Billy Davies signed both his brother and Spencer when he was manager of Motherwell.
23.
Billy Davies frequently refers to himself in the third person during interviews as a running gag.